I'm a San Francisco-based Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on wealth. I edit mostly, but also write about how the richest get wealthy and how they spend their time and their money. My colleague Luisa Kroll at Forbes in New York and I oversee the massive reporting effort that goes into Forbes' annual World's Billionaires List and the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list. The former gets me to use my rusty Spanish and Portuguese. In 2014, I won an Overseas Press Club award for an article I wrote about Saudi Arabian billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal; I also won a Gerald Loeb Award with co-author Rafael Marques de Morais for an article we wrote about Isabel dos Santos, the eldest daughter of Angola's President. Over 20 years my Forbes reporting has taken me to 17 countries on four continents, from the slums of Manila to palaces in Saudi Arabia and Mexico's presidential residence. Follow me on Twitter @KerryDolan My email: kdolan[at]forbes[dot] com Tips and story ideas welcome.

The World's Richest Man On Fixing The Global Economy

Even before that report came out Slim was eager to rebut the charges of high prices when I mentioned them. “That’s what competitors say, but if that were true, they would take the market from us,” he says, bristling a bit. “The customers are not fools.” He pulls out a chart from a December report by Bank of America Merrill Lynch showing wireless revenues at 4 cents per minute in Mexico, nearly as low as the U.S., with 3 cents.

“That’s quite a cynical take on monopoly pricing power and cost structures,” says billionaire Ricardo Salinas, who is chairman of mobile network competitor Iusacell and also controls Mexico’s number two broadcaster, Azteca. “What Mexico needs is a level regulatory playing field that makes long-term competition feasible. There’s a fear with some government officials to take on the status quo.”

The rise in Slim’s net worth over the past three decades has been nothing short of remarkable. He first appeared on FORBES’ Billionaires list in 1991 at $1.7 billion, based ­primarily on his Grupo Carso stake. Nine years later Telmex split off its mobile phone service business into América Móvil, which listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in early 2001. By then Slim’s net worth had grown to $10.8 billion.

In the following years América Móvil acquired mobile phone network operators throughout Central America and South America—it now operates in 18 countries, including Mexico and the U.S. Between 2004 and 2008 its split-adjusted share price grew sixfold to $30. That propelled Slim, with a $60 billion fortune, to move ahead of longtime number one richest man Bill Gates in 2008 to the number two spot (Warren Buffett was the richest that year). Slim held the title of world’s richest man in 2010, 2011 and this year.

When I ask Slim how his life has changed over two decades as an ever richer billionaire, he quips, “It’s not money.” (True—it’s primarily the value of shares he and his family own in public companies.) Then he adds that his life hasn’t changed at all. Like Warren Buffett, he’s lived in the same house for much of his adult life. “My bachelor house was better than where I have lived for 40 years,” he says. I mention that he used to drive himself to work in a blue Thunderbird in the early 1990s. “I still drive,” he responds— but now, with security guards, in a four-year-old Mercedes.

I press him again, and Slim does admit that having great wealth has indeed changed things. “I have more activity, more responsibility and more compromise,” he says. The compromise, he explains, is the challenge of solving Mexico’s problems. “I’m trying to make our country better in the areas that I can. I am not the police,” he adds, alluding to Mexico’s ongoing, bloody battle against the drug cartels. He wants his 6 children and his grandchildren (all 19 of them) to follow in his footsteps and do even more work to help Mexico change. Slim, whose wife, Soumaya, died in 1999, makes sure to see his family at least once a week: He has dinner with his children every Monday and lunch with his grandchildren every Wednesday.

His biggest goal is a fight against poverty—but not for the usual reasons. “It’s good economically. In the past it was something ethical and moral,” he asserts, speaking like the rational capitalist he is. “To take poor people out of poverty and put them in the modern economy is very good for the economy, for the country, for society and for business. It is the best investment.”

It’s not something that should be left to the government, either. “I think that businessmen and entrepreneurs have more experience managing resources, and we can more easily solve the problems than politicians, who have other views. They are thinking about elections, they are thinking about popularity,” says Slim. “I don’t think that giving money should be something done for personal ­popularity.”

But how to do so? Slim is skeptical of traditional charity. “I am convinced that the private sector needs to give support, not money, because charity has not solved poverty in hundreds of years.” He believes the best course for chipping away at poverty is using digital tools for education to, as he says, “create human capital.” That’s where Telmex, the Carlos Slim Foundation and the Telmex Foundation come in.

The latest endeavor of Slim’s two foundations and Telmex is a system of digital libraries. “Now, instead of going to the library, you go to a digital library where you can navigate [computers] completely free,” says Slim. “Instead of lending a book, we’ll lend a laptop for 15 days.” There are some 3,500 digital libraries. Slim’s aim is to enable 60% of Latin America to have access to computers by 2015—the same timeline set by the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. So far these newfangled libraries are only in Mexico, which means he’s got a lot of ground to cover.

Slim won’t say how much of his fortune he plans on giving away eventually. So far he’s put a total of $4 billion into the Carlos Slim Foundation—via $2 billion installments in 2006 and 2010, funded by dividends. Its main areas of focus are education and health. “It’s about the development of people’s potential. He wants to make it easier for people to generate wealth,” explains Alejandro Soberón, the chief ­executive of entertainment company CIE and a longtime América Móvil board member. “I travel all over Latin America, and I don’t think there’s another businessman who’s had the impact he’s had on health and education.”

In 2010 the Slim Foundation partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the government of Spain in a five-year program to improve the health of the poorest 20% of the population in southern Mexico and Central America; each partner contributed $50 million. With the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard (funded by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad), Slim’s foundation began collaborating in 2010 on a three-year study of the genomic roots of cancer and type 2 diabetes in Mexican and Latin American populations, with the Slim Foundation paying $65 million. “It’s a visionary piece of philanthropy,” says Broad Institute director Eric Lander, explaining that in cancer the researchers were looking for mutations to help guide treatment. The ­researchers have already discovered genes linked to breast cancer, head and neck cancer and diabetes.

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For your Information Mexico is the 11 th economy of the world actually Mexico city where he lives now is the 4 th city economy in the American Continent I mean Mexico city moves more money than cities such as Houston and many others, just NewYork , LA and Chicago have bigger economys than Mexico city the rest of the cities in the USA have a smaller Groos national product than Mx Cty look. in economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City#Economy

Well I beleive that every country including the USA has some pleaces that are unsecure for xample Washington the murder rate is very high as well as many parts of the Detroit Metropolitan area have higher murder rates thn Mexico city for example. Do you know Peter Greenberg ? well he said once that there are more chances that you get robbed or murdered in the touristic city of Miami than in Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta or Cancun

How about fixing the country of Mexico social and economic woes before telling the rest of the world what to do. Hey, and, also how about distributing some of your money to the people of Mexico in dire need to keep them in their own country; maybe with some jobs?????

If you read the whole article, you’ll see that Slim is working on both of those areas: trying to improve health and education within Mexico, and supportive of efforts that create new jobs. The one corporate board he still sits on, IDEAL, does infrastructure work, which he says is good for job creation. Of course, one man, even one very wealthy man, cannot solve all the problems of one country.

“Hey, and, also how about distributing some of your money to the people of Mexico”

Lets say he contributed 30 billion dollars (about 1/2 his net worth) to the poorest 10% of Mexico, and lets pretend this could easily be administered and distributed without fraud and corruption from the cartels. That’s less than 2500 a recipient. That would be helpful for a few months, but it wouldn’t solve any problems.

It doesn’t make sense to get mad at someone for offering unsolicited advice when your doing the exact same thing to the person your accusing of doing so. Don’t you think he would love to see Mexico at its best?

I find this article very interesting, I have read some about Carlos Slim and I have witnessed how some of his company scholarships helped a cousin some 17 years ago when the conglomerate was not even close to what is today. Of course many people will argue that he could do more, of course open more to competition, give more money to charity and things like that, but let me mention my point of view about Mr Slim. I have lived and work as a Process and IT Consultant in several countries such as Germany, Poland, Croatia, Chec Republic , USA and of course Mexico where I am from and where I currently live and in my opinion the changes that are happening today in Mexico are so fast and so profound that I would never expected some 10 yeasr ago, for example many people argue that Telmex and America Movil have complete control of the market but to that I would say that I do not agree with that because every one has the liberty to change to any of the companies that are in the market, such as the giant Spanish company Movistar (Telefónica) which is cheaper than América Movil, actually I have one, but there are other companies such as Iusacell, Nextel, MaxCom cel, Unefon(also very cheap) and in fixed lines there are plenty of companies like Cablevisión, Max Com, Mega Cable, of course Telmex, Bestel, Axtel, you can search if you do not believe me. Grupo Carso owns a commercial branch that manage brands like Sears and Roubuck of Mexico, Saks Fifth Avenue and Sanborns in this last, you can see that in these not so big Restaurants and stores, you will find more people working there than needed, and I remember an article about that saying that his success in this business is about service and giving opportunity to people, so in that sense I actually believe that by giving work to hundreds of thousands of people all over Mexico and Latin America he is doing more than just charity I believe. In the last years the Slim Conglomerate has expanded to all kinds of Industries like mining and infrastructure expanding employment opportunity for Mexicans , and also for example in education his foundation has helped over 165,000 to get into the university in Mexico, he has helped and financed the surgery of over 800,00 people in Mexico. Recently he opened the Soumaya Museum with an investment close to the Billion dollars it is a magnificent museum, many say it is one of the best art museums in the world, it is very interesting to go and see several pieces from the best European authors such as Picasso, Rodin and Van Gogh , the entrance is free and thousands and thousands of people from all over the world come here to Mexico city to visit the museum , regardless of the fact that the entrance and all expenses of maintaining the museum are paid by them the thing is that during 2011 over 6 million foreign tourists from other countries visited Mexico city and many of them visited the museum, this is leaving the Tourist industry a lot of money and opportunities to maintain growth and keep opening new jobs for example

Mexico’s poverty and social ills have been decades in the making. The people of the U.S. are its biggest business partner – in the drug industry. Education could eventually resolve that issue, but it must happen on both sides of the border. Almost every suggestion Slim makes for the global economy could apply to the U.S. situation.

Carlos Slim is one of the biggest culprits when it comes to sucking the life out of the mexican people and the country as a whole. He’s rich because of his unethical and illegal business practices. If you look-up the definition of the words monopoly, hypocrite, greed, corruption, bribery, human and civil rights violator, and organized crime in the dictionsry, you’re more than likely to see a picture of this cold and callous man. What gall to dispense advice to world leaders on how to fix their economies when within the estimated 25.2 million people living in rural Mexico, 57 percent live in poverty and 28 percent live in extreme poverty. Limited access to basic services, productive natural resources, credit and education perpetuate these conditions. Now, if you look up the definition of the word philanthropy, one thing for sure, you’ll never see Carlos Slim’s name or picture next to it! No wonder our “Mexico LIndo” is such a toilet, it’s because of people like the world”s richest man in the world, Carlos Slim Helu!

I think JoAnn Clark below sized it right: Fix the social and economic woes of Mexico first. Set up programs to feed the needs of your own poor, housing, food, training and healthcare. And, of course, effectively combat the ruthless, greedy drug cartels!

And, how praytell is Carlos Slim going to resolve the problem created by U.S. narcotics users, supported by your money launderers and arms dealers? This is not Carlos Slim’s problem, and your government has spent a heck of a lot more money than even he has going back and forth over how you deal with the problem, while expecting us here in Mexico to bleed and die for your addictions!

Actually, that’s what governments & legislation are for. This person worked to accumulate his wealth, therefore he does not owe anybody anything, and handing out freebies does not solve anything. One needs to remember nothing is free, by the way if you don’t work, you don’t eat.